Room to Dream
David Lynch and Kristine McKenna
As unusual as the man himself, Room to Dream is the highly anticipated memoir from the revolutionary and elusive David Lynch, co-creator of Twin Peaks and director of groundbreaking films such as The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive.
In this memoir, David Lynch, co-creator of Twin Peaks and writer and director of groundbreaking films like Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, opens up about a lifetime of extraordinary creativity, the friendships he has made along the way and the struggles he has faced—sometimes successful, sometimes not—to bring his projects to fruition.
Part memoir, part biography, Room to Dream interweaves Lynch’s own reflections on his life with the story of those times, as told by Kristine McKenna, drawing from extensive and explosive interviews with ninety of Lynch’s friends, family members, actors, agents, musicians and collaborators. Lynch responds to each recollection and reveals the inner story of the life behind the art.
Read Text’s blog post: ‘10 Things You Never Knew About David Lynch’
EXTRACTS
New York Times ($), Jun 18
LitHub, Jul 18
INTERVIEWS
Guardian, Jun 18
Los Angeles Times, Jul 18
REVIEWS
Age
Australian, (David Stratton review!) Jun 18
Bookmunch
The Brag, Jul 18
Daily Mail, ‘100 sizzling summer reads’, Jul 18
Guardian, Jul 18
LA Times, Jun 18
LitHub, ‘16 highbrow beach reads for your summer getaway’, Jul 18
VICE UK
Publishers Weekly Summer Reads (Staff picks)
Publishers Weekly: Best Books of 2018, 20 Novel Ideas for Christmas
Shelf Awareness
The Spinoff
andRoom to Dream
This enigmatic yet plainspoken artist has told his story innumerable times, most recently in the documentary David Lynch: The Art Life, but I never tire of hearing of the strange path that took him from an idyllic 1950s Midwestern childhood, to a decaying late ’60s Philadelphia, to the heights of Hollywood.
‘Fascinating insights into the director’s process.’
‘Lynch has stories to spare and it may be that this is the closest most of us get to spending time in his company…The book is both salve and distraction. All but essential for Lynch fans.’
‘A tantalising hybrid of biography and autobiography… Film buffs will delight in this compelling and illuminating memoir…Lynch casts aside his reticence to discuss his life and films in this wildly enjoyable, massive and bracingly candid memoir.’
‘Offers countless new stories, even for Lynch fanatics…All is told with Lynch’s considerable charm.’
‘Journalist Kristine McKenna maps a rich biography derived from extensive interviews…[and] Lynch jumps in second. This two-pronged approach creates an accurate timeline and intimate self-portrait, but it’s what happens in the space between that’s special: a man engaging not with his own mythology, but rather his own personhood.’
‘A sunny, holistic portrait of a corn-fed American dreamer who simply likes to show his nightmares to the world. Lynch emerges from these pages as principled, flighty…He’s constantly chasing the next big idea.’
‘Room to Dream is described as “part-memoir, part-biography” and this duality proves to be extraordinarily productive…This enlightening and exhaustive book should be an essential way of discovering more about [Lynch] and his world.’
‘Insightful, well-researched…The book abounds in great stories and terrific movie trivia that will sate Lynch fans for years to come.’
‘If you expected a David Lynch biography to be just like any other biography, you’ve never seen a David Lynch movie…Fascinating.’
‘Lynch is the master of the perverse, the unsettling and the plain bonkers.’
‘Captivating…Gives the reader a panoramic insight into Lynch’s impressive oeuvre, with sufficient time left to explore Lynch’s childhood and coming of age.’
‘Intimate and honest…McKenna’s interviewees unfailingly describe Lynch’s charisma and warmth, and his methodical but instinctive dedication to craft.’
‘A strikingly multidimensional portrait of the artist…[An] incandescently detailed and complexly enlightening chronicle of a fervent, uncompromising life devoted to “pure creativity”.’
‘Reassuringly unconventional…Engrossing…Lynch writes like he speaks. He’s disarmingly direct, cheerfully profane and prone to bursts of giddy enthusiasm.’
‘What makes this book endearing is its chatty, calm…anti-Hollywood attitude…and matter-of-fact defiance of reality.’
‘The book doesn’t give us one focused view of Lynch, but a double vision, as though two similar but not quite exact portraits of the man have been projected onto one another…There is value, joy, and beauty in staying with Lynch and his cohorts for these 500-plus pages.’
‘An intimate, humanising self-portrait…This wonderful new book is the most comprehensive overview of the filmmaker’s life and career to date.’
‘A unique reading experience; more experimental novel than straight up biography. Which is most welcome and entirely appropriate…An endlessly fascinating work that invites multiple readings.’
‘Traditional and comprehensive on one side while whimsical and irreverent on the other, Room to Dream manages to have it both ways…[A]n enthusiastic, contagious tribute to creativity itself.’
‘[A] memorable portrait of one of cinema’s great auteurs…It provides a remarkable insight into Lynch’s intense commitment to the “art life”.’
‘A fascinating look into an endlessly imaginative and alarming man.’
‘Fresh from near-universal praise for his Twin Peaks follow-up, visionary director David Lynch teams ups with Kristine McKenna to deliver a part memoir, part biography incorporating interviews with friends and contemporaries. Giving us an in-depth look into his creative process, Lynch reveals the inner story of the life behind the art.’
‘Eccentric, addictive and inspiring.’
